The ancient Sumerian tablet glowed on Richard Wonder's laptop screen, its cryptic symbols seeming to pulse with each passing second. Outside his apartment window, dawn painted the university campus in watercolor hues, but Richard hadn't noticed—hadn't moved for hours except to scribble frantic notes or rub his bloodshot eyes.
"This makes no sense," he muttered, tracing the spiral symbol with his finger across the screen. "The linguistic pattern doesn't match any known Sumerian dialect."
The spiral surrounded by eye-like markings appeared seven times throughout the tablet. Not decorative. Purposeful. Like it was watching him.
Richard's cramped apartment told the story of a mind consumed: maps covered walls like wallpaper, ancient texts formed precarious towers on every surface, and his coffee table had disappeared beneath printouts of comparative linguistics charts. His latest mug of coffee sat cold and forgotten beside his keyboard.
His phone buzzed for the third time in ten minutes.
*Emily again*, he thought, guilt tugging at him as he checked the message.
**Emily:** *Are you still alive? Meeting starts in 20 minutes. Don't make me break into your apartment.*
**Emily:** *The group presentation THAT COUNTS FOR 30% OF OUR GRADE? Remember?*
**Emily:** *Richard, I swear to all your ancient gods...*
He cursed under his breath, suddenly registering the time. 8:40 AM. The mythological comparisons presentation was at 9:00.
"Not again," Richard groaned, launching himself from his chair. He grabbed the nearest semi-clean shirt, his notes, and his laptop, nearly tripping over a stack of books on Mesopotamian death rituals.
As he rushed around, his eyes kept drifting back to the tablet image. Seven weeks of obsession, of sleepless nights and skipped meals. His professors thought he was overthinking a simple religious symbol, but Richard knew—*knew*—there was something extraordinary hidden in those markings.
---
"You look like you got hit by the campus shuttle," Emily said when he burst into the library study room, eighteen minutes later. Her dark eyes narrowed with a mixture of concern and exasperation that only she could perfect.
Jake snorted from behind his camera, which he predictably had aimed at Richard's disheveled entrance. "I'm calling this documentary 'The Walking Dead: Academic Edition.'"
"Did you sleep at all?" Elliot asked without looking up from his laptop, fingers still flying across the keyboard as he finalized their presentation slides.
Richard collapsed into a chair, spreading his notes across the table. "I think I found something in the spiral patterns. The repetition isn't random—it corresponds to astronomical cycles that wouldn't have been documented in that period. It's like..."
"Like you're avoiding my question about sleep," Emily interrupted, sliding a coffee and wrapped sandwich in front of him. Her fingertips lingered near his hand for a moment before she pulled away.
The gesture wasn't lost on Jake, who exchanged a knowing glance with Elliot. Richard, however, barely noticed as he inhaled half the coffee in one desperate gulp.
"Thanks," he said, already flipping through his notes. "So for the presentation, I've reconsidered the comparative analysis between Sumerian and Egyptian afterlife mythology—"
"Already updated the slides," Elliot said. "Your 3 AM emails were... illuminating. Bordering on concerning, but illuminating."
Emily leaned forward. "Richard, we're worried about you. This tablet obsession is—"
"Not an obsession," Richard countered, too quickly. "It's research. There's something there, Em. Something nobody else has noticed."
"Well, make sure Professor Thornhill notices our presentation first," Jake said, finally lowering his camera. "Otherwise, we're all getting intimate with academic probation."
Richard nodded, forcing himself to focus on their group work. But the spiral symbol kept flashing in his mind, pulsing like a heartbeat, drawing him back toward a mystery he couldn't yet name.
---
They nailed the presentation. Even Professor Thornhill seemed impressed with their analysis of mythological patterns across ancient civilizations. Richard's section on symbolic language in mystical texts had drawn audible murmurs from the classroom—a rare victory in the typically stoic world of academic history.
"Your connection between symbolic repetition and power transference was particularly compelling, Mr. Wonder," the professor remarked afterward. "Though I maintain the tablet's spiral is likely ceremonial, your linguistic analysis deserves further exploration."
Richard barely heard the praise. He was already calculating how quickly he could get back to his research.
As they exited the building, Emily caught up with him, her hand briefly touching his arm. "We're celebrating at Grayson's Pub tonight. You're coming. Not a question."
"I really need to get back to—"
"The tablet will still be ancient tomorrow," she insisted, her expression softening. "You need actual food, actual sleep, and at least one hour where you talk about something other than dead languages."
Something in her eyes made Richard pause. Had she always looked at him that way?
"Fine," he conceded. "But I need to check something in the Hamilton Building first. Meet you there?"
Emily sighed but nodded. "Don't make me hunt you down, Wonder."
---
Richard was late, of course. His "quick check" in the historical archives had turned into two hours of cross-referencing obscure Akkadian texts. By the time he realized his mistake, the sun was already setting.
"Damn it," he muttered, gathering his notes and rushing toward the exit. His mind still swirled with translations and symbols as he pushed through the door and broke into a jog across campus.
In his distraction, he didn't see the construction area ahead. Didn't notice the glossy patch of spilled oil on the pavement. His foot hit the slick surface, and suddenly the world tilted violently.
Richard felt a moment of weightlessness before his back slammed against the concrete. His head cracked against the ground with a sickening thud. Pain exploded across his skull as a rush of darkness began closing in from the edges of his vision.
As consciousness slipped away, he saw something impossible: the spiral symbol from the tablet, glowing in the air above him, eyes blinking open one by one.
Then nothing but blackness.
---
The hospital room came into focus slowly. Sterile white ceiling. Rhythmic beeping. The antiseptic smell that couldn't quite mask the underlying scent of sickness.
Richard blinked, trying to orient himself. His arm was in a cast. His head throbbed with every heartbeat. Fragments of memory returned: the fall, the pain, the impossible floating symbol.
A doctor had explained something about a mild concussion and a hairline fracture. He'd be fine in a few weeks. Just needed rest.
Rest. What a concept.
Now he sat alone in the room, watching afternoon shadows stretch across the floor. His friends had been by—empty coffee cups and a small stack of books on the side table testified to that—but must have stepped out.
That's when he heard it. A low, subtle hum that seemed to vibrate through his bones rather than the air. The fluorescent lights flickered once, twice, and then stabilized.
And there it was, hovering in the empty space before him: glowing text, floating without projection or screen, impossible yet undeniably present.
[**You have acquired the Ancestral Magic System**]
Richard stared, unblinking. He waved his hand through the text—no resistance, but the words remained perfectly visible. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, opened them. Still there.
The message pulsed once, the same rhythm as the spiral's eyes in his fading vision before he'd passed out.
"Not possible," he whispered, his academic mind racing through explanations: hallucination from medication, post-concussion syndrome, dream state...
But deep down, in a place beyond rational thought, Richard Wonder knew.
The tablet hadn't been studying history.
It had been studying him.